Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

95BlueStallion said:

Oh sure, now you give me a manual! Honestly, I have no idea how it met the radiator. I never removed it during the install of the tranny, and it was fine before the trans swap. I must have leaned on it and bent it while I swapped the carb or something. Even so, it idled outside and warmed up before the drive for a good 15 minutes while I cleaned the garage, and was not making contact at that point. Anyway, quit taking me so seriously and give us some more updates on your car.

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Seriously? You have NO Idea how a flex fan that was close to the radiator met the radiator?

Think about it:

A flex fan flattens as it spins at higher RPM. As it flattens,..it also bends forward trying to pull more air.

Ever Seen how a helicopter's blades bend when it takes off/lands?

** Mr. Flex Fan? may I introduce you to Mr. Radiator?

These are BIG flex fans,....flexing.

madspeed said:

this thread seems like its been going on since 1978

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No more updates for you!

madspeed said:

I prefer the un edited post

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Only you can see that I guess.

Ok.

I know you guys think you've already seen these pictures,...fact is you haven't.

For the last few days, since roughing in the mustang tail lights,..I've been going back and forth betwen them, and the 67 Cougar tail lights I bought last year for the thing.

The Mustang tails are close, but they crown. The Fairmont trunk deck is straight across. This morning I made up my mind to keep the Mustang tails, and went to my storage facility to get the back bumper, and the trunk deck to see how wonky the tail lights will look up against the bumper, and trunk deck.

Terrible.

My initial mock up had the tail lights waaay to far off the rear, and they hung out so far past the deck, the only picture I can paint for you is something like:
View attachment 182094

I cut them back off.

I left the tails for the moment and dealt w/ the bumper.


The bumper in it's stock location is hideous. It hangs a mile back, and a 1/4 mile out on each side. Those shock absorbers are filled w/ some sort of silicone fungoo that was supposed to help the bumper absorb a 5 mile per hour impact.

I know they were filled w/ silicone because I cut them apart. Once cut apart, I was able to gut those shock absorbers so I could collapse them enough to be able to move the bumper closer inboard.


Believe it or not, this is the bumper 3.5" closer than it was in the pic above. I also dealt w/ the significant side hangover by cutting the aluminum bumper ends off, and sectioning 1.5" off of each side. I think I'm gonna use epoxy to put the bumper back together, along w/ a screen backer as opposed to taking it somewhere to have it tigged. It's actually 1/8" aluminum, and those end caps are not supporting anything, so I believe that I can JB those bad boys back on, and w/ the screen backer giving additional strength,..it'll be a permanent solution.

The plate on top of the bumper is the start of a filler piece to fill the gap between the bottom of the tails and the top of the bumper. Fairmont tail lights are about 1.5" taller than Mustang pieces, so I got a butt load of space to fill. Even w/ the taller Fairmont tail light,...Ford still used a cheesy plastic filler to fill a 3/4" gap that remained between the stock lights.

The remaining gap w/ the Fox tails, is why I didn't go w/ the Cougar pieces. They are about 2" shorter than the Mustang lights, so I'd have even more of a gap to deal with.



* there's something on the lens of the camera,..I thought it was my bad eye. It's what it's like to look through it.

So there is the gap. I plan to fill it w/ a strip angled back to just under the Fox tail lights. I think it'll be OK, because that angle will match the angle of the trunk.

Speaking of the trunk;

Huge mismatch between the crown of the Mustang tails VS the flat ass Fairmont trunk. I'm gonna have to add a new rear facade and crown the fairmont trunk to follow the Mustang tails. Additionally, The plastic pieces that sit on the ends gotta go as well. They don't follow the curve at all. If you look you can see where I had to cut the quarter so I could get it to follow the top of the tail. The quarter extensions will have to be built out of steel and welded solid.

I'm gonna build a rear valance that goes under the bumper. I'll call it a "modesty panel" because it'll hide my rear end and all of the other junk under the trunk.

Even here. It don't show it, but I had to roll the quarter below the tail to make it follow the damn thing as well.


1/8 thick aluminum bumpers......Now you know why these cars weigh under 2800 pounds.

madspeed said:

Actually, i got the email notification that contained your post

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Yeah well, then you get be the only one to see that I sometimes think better of what I say.

I did forget one small detail to yesterdays' update. In retrospect, It's actually a fairly major tidbit because it adds the "human factor" to what I do.

The very first thing I do.


The very first minute, of the very first hour of the 8 hour day I spent in the basement yesterday I have a little "Young Frankenstein minute".

I was gonna tack weld part of the revamped tail light panel in place. I thought that I'd just hold the pieces in place w/ my bare hand.

Literally no sooner did I pull the trigger on the gun, and a blob of molten metal spattered off of the steel I was welding on, and landed on the ring finger of my left hand.
It landed, then proceeded to melt it's way to into my finger, all while my knowledge of that was obscured by the darkened lens on my welding helmet.
The pain signaling my brain that there was "an incident" that I needed to pay attention to caused my
OWWWWWWWFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUCCCCCKKKK!!!!!!! reaction.

I flung my helmet open to see this in full fester, that little molten ball now on the ground still glowing red, only now w/ part of my finger on it.

Noobz347 said:

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You keep pics of your sponge bob bandaged finger for posts like mine, or did you just whip that one up on purpose?